The Story is Still Told

On my first visit to Malawi, I spent three weeks in a rural, lakeshore village named Bandawe. Bandawe was the second location where missionaries from Scotland came after the death of David Livingston. Inspired by his life and sacrifice, young pastors and their families ventured deep into the continent of Africa to bring the gospel to the place where David Livingston died.

They could not have chosen a worse spot. The lakeshore of Malawi is one of the most potent places of malaria in the world. The Scottish missionaries, until they moved to the highlands, all died of malaria not long after their arrival.

Our host and guide for much of our visit was Rev. Gondwe. We renamed him Nehemiah because the man was literally building something all the time everywhere. He described each effort in terms of phases. This project is in the first phase; this is in the third phase and so on.

For one afternoon Gondwe took us to the missionary cemetery. It's a beautiful spot; you can see the lake and the terrain is dotted with trees and tall grasses. As we made our way down the line of headstones, there was one that was painful, hard to read. The stone simply said, "baby." The other stones were hard as well. They were because of the ages. The missionaries from Scotland were all in their early to mid-twenties. You got a sense of life just beginning and then ending tragically so far from home.

It was at this point, I believe to break the silence and sadness, that Gondwe launched into a speech. He praised the missionaries. He lauded their sacrifice. And then he said something I will never forget. He said, "Malawi needs more people like these here. We need more people who will come to Malawi and die."

Our group of eight was a bit stunned and confused. To break the resumed silence I said, "Ah, Gondwe, I believe you are right. You are hoping that young people will come to Malawi and live a long and wonderful life and never want to leave. They cannot think of being anywhere else, so they die here so very happy when they are old." Gondwe thought for a moment and said, "yes, yes. That is it. Exactly. Stay a long time and then die."

Stay a long time and then die. As far as plans go, not a bad one. Certainly beats tragedy.

To say that the young, Scottish missionaries knew the danger or knew what they were getting into is a stretch. There is nothing in Scotland that would ever prepare you for central Africa. And yet, to say that they were courageous and ready to sacrifice, this is true. If only there had been a better understanding of geography. Once the missionaries moved their efforts to the high plateau where the temperatures are cooler and the mosquitoes do not survive the frost, the missionaries lived and did a great turn.

They brought the gospel, which is a great gift, and then, they also brought our form of Church government. We Presbyterians are all about representational democracy. And this shaped the country, what Malawi became after the British left. Yet, even more, is that the Scots brought education to boys and girls, would not open the much-desired schools unless girls were admitted as well. This truly changed the world.

On a Reformation Sunday, a Kirkin' Sunday, it is good to remember this. We should celebrate what our tradition has done. In the same way, it is important to remember, this last effort, the education of all children, boys and girls together, this wasn't a novel idea for the Scots in the 19th century; this was the novel idea of John Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century. Boys and girls both offered public education: this was Calvin. Yes, it would take us 400 years to allow women equality, ordination, and the door to leadership, but it began with the radical leap Calvin created in public education for children now nearly 500 years ago. This is our legacy, our heritage; this is something we should honor.

This demand and dream of Calvin's was not always well received or honored. This and many of his ideas were not always popular. The most common name for dogs in Geneva at this time was Calvin. The town kicked him out the first time he was the pastor. He only came back to Geneva after they pleaded with him and offered him more wine as part of his compensation.

Perhaps the two greatest legacies of Calvin are these: first, his efforts to provide theological education and the Bible in French set a course for the church for centuries. And perhaps the second great legacy is the role of the city and the church as working in collaboration. Calvin seemed to walk the line between the authority of the city council and the authority of company of pastors with great dexterity. He didn't fall to exclusion or theocracy or a confusion of church and state. This juxtaposition of opposites that complement without contradicting is a key to his thought. Church and city; not mingled, but not exclusive.

Yet, I believe his greater impact was the first, education for all. That his life's work, The Institutes, except for the first edition, was always translated into French, this made theology open to all. With our endless access to information today, it may be hard to fathom how shocking it was to have access to the Bible and then to theology in your own language and not kept as the special possession of an elite few, it might be hard to see how unthinkable this was. The public school of Geneva was for both boys and girls and the Bible and theology were for pastors and the people. “And the people” changed the world.

Near the end of Calvin's life, he gave strict instruction about his burial. He was to be buried with everyone else, in a common grave with no marker or headstone. He didn't want people to know where he was buried.

This too might be hard to fathom. Yet, prior to the revolutions, both the American and the French, it was the common practice for burial to have no marker or headstone. Only 5% of the population prior to the 1800s were buried in crypts or tombs or with marble markers. After the revolutions there was a kind of democritization of death. It was a kind of new equality that all would be honored with a marker like we still do today.

What Calvin was calling for in demanding he be buried like everyone else was not an act of humility or egalitarianism. He didn't want people to know where he was buried because he didn't want his bones to be treated as a relic or made into a shrine of devotion.

This fear might seem strange to us, but during Calvin's lifetime the common view of those who had died is that they were more powerful than when they were living. Death made your life supercharged. Death was freeing and with freedom came possibility. Add to this the resurrection of Christ and the dead were all too alive, able to influence this world as they abided in the next. This view, Calvin believed, was false and was abused by the church.

Calvin worked very hard to undo the widespread abuse of prayers to saints and the extortion of the living to affect the ease of the dead. People paid money to help a loved one who died without redemption, or without clear belief. Think 10 grand to get someone out of purgatory. People paid to help the dead or gave money believing the dead would help them.
Calvin spent a good deal of his life trying to undo the idea that the dead needed our sacrifice or that the dead could use our sacrifice to change fortune and fate. In a sense, Calvin didn't want to become a commodity in the economy of the dead.

He got his wish; we know the cemetery where he was buried, but not the spot. There is no marker. And there was no cult of Calvin or a shrine. What we have is a legacy, a deep impression, a tree that bore great fruit.

Last week Gary Ostermueller gave a great presentation from the case study you will receive or have received. The one line that leapt out at me was the notion of having a legacy, but not relying upon it. This was quite Reformed, quite an expression of Calvin; it embodied his life and beliefs and sacrifice. The church has legacies but should not live off them. An economy of the dead.

We are called to build the church, to give and sacrifice, not rest on the sacrifice of others. The Scottish missionaries who died on the lakeshore lived this out. The gospel was theirs to proclaim; the future of the church was theirs to make.

The education of boys and girls, just as Calvin had demanded in Geneva, was reborn, made new in Central Africa. Not because Calvin did it. Boys and girls were educated together because all are human. This was the church born anew.

In a church more than 300 years old, we can lose the sense of purpose. We can lose the need to rise, to live these days. With such blessings that comes from generations before us, what do we really need to do? Do we really need to give? If the church has an endowment, is my tithe important? The church cannot live in the economy of the dead.

The church is only as alive as you make it, only as blessed as we grow it. If we fail to be good stewards, we will create a purgatorial church, caught between the past and the future.
When the tomb was empty and the guards made their report, Matthew says they accepted a bribe and then spread a rumor, a lie, that the disciples stole the body. There was no resurrection. And to this day, Matthew says, this story has been told. The gospel of Matthew was written about sixty years after Jesus' death and resurrection. The lie persisted. Yet generation after generation of the church exposed the lie for what it was.

The resurrection wasn't a better story or better argument. The resurrection was true and became a living story, still told, because people lived it. The young Scottish missionaries, they lived it. Calvin lived it.

The truth of the resurrection is not that Matthew recorded it. The truth of the resurrection is that you live it. To live this resurrection is to make the church vibrant for our generation in our generosity. Not what it was, but what it will be.

Today, on this heritage Sunday, with the bagpipes and the roses, the necrology and the bells tolling for our beloved, the question we need to ask is this: are we living a resurrection story, a life of generosity and faith? Are we too telling the story in our life and stewardship? It is easy to let the story of the church become history, a fading legacy. What is the story of your giving to the church?

Last week Gary mentioned increasing your pledge by 10%. Can you do this, he asked? This is good and needed. I would ask you to consider doing this, but I would also ask you to consider another question: is your giving creating the future of the church, the hope of the church, the resurrection story? You are the future of the church here and now. Are we building the future or abiding in the sacrifices of the past? Let’s not trade in the economy of the dead. Let’s build the future in generosity so the story continues to be told. Amen.